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The Tell-Tale Heart
The Beginning of Pain In an underground cave of an island lost in the turbulent seas of the New World, whose shores were nested in an archipelago somewhat close to Dressrosa, there was a lab. It spanned miles below the sea surface, a labyrinth made of perfectly round walls at least as tall as a giant. No form of autochthon life could be found in the galleries, not a bat, not a gecko, not even the small plant; every pool was drained barren, its water sterilized and used for medical purposes, and its natural odors replaced with a vague smell of ammonia. The place was so silent, void, and clean passersby would wonder if the place had ever been natural in the place, being instead some relics of an ancient civilization dug and chiseled through decades of toil and labor. Yet this was the work of few, all for the will of one man, and the welcoming on another man. That man was dreaming in the exact center of the underground complex, drowned in chemical liquids and skewered by tubes in every direction. The man dreamt of his most current past, the greatest nightmare he had ever experienced at least now. There was lighting and there was thunder, washing away the sea in a piercing white for a moment before it returned dark and red. There was the noise of cannonballs tearing through vessel sides and wounding eardrums. There were screams and cries and howls, of rage, of pain, of unbridled madness. There was the clangor of metal, and the flush of blood and gore and piss spreading over hulls before joining the sea. There was a damn purple haze, a noxious shroud finally cast aside by the downpour and the stormy winds. Above all, there was death. Death everywhere, among the man’s friends and enemies. Corpses, corpses, old and new, rising in numbers by the second. Corpses around him and corpses inside him: but the man had survived. He thrived, hacking and murdering, enduring the devilish poison which in mere days had taken away his family. He survived, through hails of shrapnel and barrages of cannonballs, left stranded on woods, screaming with such fury he cast the wrath of the hell gods upon his enemies. He survived. And he wished he did not. Why? Valerius awakened. His vision was still a complete mess: objects and figures were utterly blurred inside the chemical vans. Not a single detail could tell him who sought enough worth in him to save him, nor for what purpose. Furthermore, he could not understand why his throat wasn’t hurting anymore, as it was already mangled by pus and cysts for days and his skyward scream had it snapped and filled with blood. He tried to yank his limbs a bit, but they all felt no more responsive than a dead body. Even less perhaps: at least dead bodies could shit, at certain conditions. He was more like rocks, or some statue inside a sunken vessel forever lost to the ocean currents. “What’s happening to me? Where am I? Why I am? Somebody explains to me, please!” He asked, almost hollered, but no word was uttered, not even the muffled echoes and bubbles rising from the mouths of those trying to speak underwater. Whoever had healed his wounds and took to this strange place had also turned him, for good or ill, in a complete puppet under their thrall. Very little for a change, actually. After a while- Valerius could not tell if a minute, or hours, or days had passed, for even his own perception of time was floating aimlessly in the endless green and grey walls around- he finally heard a voice, coming not from any point or place inside of the vat, but directly resounding inside his own head. “Good evening, Valerius dear. And greetings. My name is Simon N. Weil, but I’d find rather pleasing if you addressed me as Dr. Weil or Weil-san. Though our line of work will seldom involve acting courteous and following good manners- regrettably so- politeness is still key in keeping cordial and fruitful interpersonal relationships, especially among men bound to carry together the same burden”. That voice… Valerius could not remember, no matter how hard he tried, whom it belonged to. He could deduce that it came from a middle-aged man with a somewhat lower pitch, bearing an impressive vocabulary. The man speaking inside himself sounded polite and courteous enough, even a bit chipper. Yet Valerius could discern a chilling feeling behind each word and syllables: that for he could not discern any true attachment, any authentic emotion behind curiosity, a void without a scrap of empathy. Valerius has never talked to androids, but he could bet that a most advanced model, one without “beeps” or autotunes, would talk in exactly the same manner. He found that truly disturbing, something he could say about very few people or things. “Now Valerius-dear, I can sense an understandable sense of confusion coming from your mind, wrought by the lingering stress coming from your past experiences and the confusion of being unable to fully understand your predicaments. I can assure the transiency of this unfavorable condition, Valerius-dear: everything shall be explained in due time…” “When?!?” Valerius cut short, shouting within his thoughts. “Why are you in my mind? Who… who are you? WHO ARE YOU ?!?” “Patience, Valerius-dear. This question, I am afraid, does require more time we can afford at the moment. I’ll explain everything once you complete a certain task for me…” The answer from the other side was delivered completely unperturbed, apparently ignoring Valerius shouts. Still every bit as polite, and every bit as hollow, as before. “We’ve got visitors to deal with…” ---- "I told you, Edgar, you didn't have to be the one to take me to ." Lenore stated with a huff of annoyance. "We're not married anymore, you don't owe me anything anymore." The young woman seemed out of place on the ship, a ship belonging to the Monk pirates known as the Ushiwakamaru. She especially looked out of place compared to the man she called her ex-husband. "You're right, I don't." The man helming the small vessel responded. Much older than the woman, Edgar was in his mid-fifties, his hair beginning to turn grey. "But at the same time, we were together for twenty-three years. Even if you don't care anymore, I just can't throw that away. I'm already going to have to explain to our children that you left. Shana isn't even old enough that she's going to remember you." "I've already made my decision Edgar, don't try and guilt trip me out of it again. I'm not going to stay tied down forever. Being like this as you age and waste away." "And you won't just use your power to keep my age down as well due to not wanting me to worry if one day I'm just going to age a bazillion years and die instantly. I know." Poe responded with a sarcastic tone. "Yes, we've had this exact conversation twenty times already, just let it go Edgar." "You know me better than that, Lenore." "I know..." "Well, either way, I still have an island to investigate on the way to Dressrosa. Otherwise, I don't think I could have justified to the Mad Monk leaving Shikhi to take you on your way." "And I'm just going to stay on the boat while you look around, then you're heading to Dressrosa, Correct?" "You're willing to throw away twenty-three years Lenore." Edgar sighed deeply. "I don't doubt for a second that turning this boat around to deny you that would end terribly. You'll get to Dressrosa. I promise." "Good." The boat docked at a small dock on the kingdom in a less reputable part of the country. Poe was here to investigate some weird rumours of monsters and machines in the country that had caught the Mad Monk's attention. This country was a piece of work, he knew that much. However, he didn't know quite what he was getting himself into. ---- “Dr. Weil, the intruders have been spotted on the southern shores of Island NNW-1405. Exact coordinates shall be given soon”. From an undisclosed place in the New World, Dr. Weil smiled, stared on the sickly light of a monitor while hundreds of Log Poses embedded on the walls to give the most accurate coordinates possible. Cameras and microphone hidden all over the island were giving a clear view on the island shore, as he was sure that news about the kidnapping would welcome all kinds of powerful visitors. The strength and fame of those guests made him jubilant, for the Poe couple were Pirates knew and feared throughout the New World, venerable monsters of the sea. For a field test of his greatest creation yet, he could scarcely fathom a better choice. Clasping his hands below his chin, he gave his order. “Release Subject VA-PRIME 01 from his container in island NNW- 1410. Time has come to ascertain the fruit of my labor”. His eyes, clad in reflecting glasses, were lit up under the monitors like large sheets of tin. Nothing about them was visible... yet somehow, that couldn’t hide a tangible, perverse curiosity, and a tremendous lust for blood. ---- Valerius flipped his head in confusion as he saw the green-blueish liquid being drained before his eyes and felt his body lifted upwards. A large vault opened above him, letting the light of the sky inundate the mostly dim laboratory; lifted by a moving platform, the vat crossed it, finally revealing to Valerius the mostly rocky and barren landscape of the surrounding island. Still, the man had no clue about the identity and nature of the place, but he soon realized there was something off about its colors: rather than a normal landscape made of brown, grey, green and some red, the place was shimmering of thousands of subtle and different hues, rainbows splashed upon each other, sometimes growing dimmer, sometimes growing darker. He saw red, yellow, green, indigo, purple…. and countless others. For Valerius, many of such colors were completely beyond his ability to describe; maybe a poet could have, but even then, he found no analogous in the normal world. Had he truly stepped into the afterlife? Was he in Hell, or in some kind of Purgatory? A new voice speaking in his head revealed him the truth. “Analysis of Subject VA-PRIME 01 completed. Abridged Results. Motor skills: optimal. Optical sensors: optimal. Initialize engagement with Target PAE4590 and Target PL1666”. Analysis…. subjects…. what did it mean all of this? Valerius nodded his head, trembling in utter shock. Given how metallic the new voice sounded and its choices of syntaxis, there was only a logical explanation: he wasn't talking to robots, he was the robot! Someone had somehow found him while on the brink of death and rebuild the man from the ground up. Suddenly, everything made sense; suddenly, Valerius’ legs felt jelly. He dared not to look at his feet and hands, for the sight of his own body broken and rebuilt like some toy by a madman would have dealt the already unbalanced man’s psyche another grievous blow. Regardless of his feelings, Valerius’ sight went directly straight to a far point in the horizon, one outside the borders of the island for over ten miles. His eyes were moving on their own, and still on their own closed focus on the targets the machine was talking about. Two people in total; Valerius could count every strand of their hair. “Target PAE4590 and Target PL1666: locked on. Subject VA-PRIME 01: remove fetters. Initialize Offensive Protocol BERSERK”. Many cables were immediately plugged out of Valerius’s body, each of them making a snapping sound. The transparent walls of the vat, still surrounding the man, retreated in the ground. This time, nothing more separated the gladiator from the rest of the surroundings. “Wait!” Valerius screamed. He had guessed little of the robot’s jargon, but he was apt to understand when people were using him as their personal bloodhound. “I don’t want to fight! Not before I’ve understood what the fuck is going on! Do you understand me? I. DON’T. WANT. TO. FIGHT!” Pain came as an answer. A sensation of indescribable agony, pervading his flesh, ripping apart his sense of reason. Though Valerius had endured tortures and toil since the moment he could walk, nothing he had physically suffered could even compare to extent of the pain at the moment. For him, it was like drinking boiling tar and having the liquid fill every crevice of his body, like having every muscle strummed by knives and his brain stomped bare over and over. Valerius’ hands jerked, trying to carve his flesh so to maybe find his heart and slash it open; but they would barely bulge. Left overwhelmed, drown in agony, Valerius was only left to scream, and he screamed. An utterly terrifying bellow exploded from his throat, something on a pitch so low that men could not perceive it. But his effects were gargantuan, massive, impossible to notice; close onlookers would perceive themselves as they were close to a natural calamity perhaps of the highest order. The entire island trembled and roared, ground jittering like butter; two massive fissures sprouted from Valerius and carved their way from tens of miles, wound the earth so deep that the heat of deep lava shimmered from the depths. A veritable earthquake was shaking the archipelago from the very core, having already snapped the landmass Valerius was on and threatening to grow larger by the seconds. The rest of the nearby islands fared little better, they waived and went up and down, mountains crumbled, and trees fell flat. Following an overpowering sensation of primal dread, fishes and birds flocked away, while deer and wild creatures grouped inside their nests. Ripped from its base, the ocean rose and mounted in tsunami’s as tall as hills- if not mountains, depending on the sea level- mercilessly swathing away everything on their path. Some of the waves found a way out of the labyrinthic archipelago and run toward the horizon, hellbent on consuming countries and landmasses far away. Yet the earthquake itself paled in comparison to the real mortal danger, which came from entering in contact with the sonic vibrations. Any form of life which was even so slightly touched by the soundwaves got their blood boiling, bones pulverized and their innards swelling up tremendously in size. Everything around Valerius was falling drop dead, their heart either stopped for the vibrations or their heads completely mashed by the sheer shockwaves. Even closer to Valerius, a ring of flame arose, a burst of explosions that completely shrouded the cyborg, finishing the job and incinerating anything close to him. Following everything from the remaining monitors, dr. Weil felt utmost pleasure. A mere scream of Valerius had all but caused a catastrophe easily on a country scale, destroyed Island NNW-1410 and now was close to completely wipe these mere islands off the map. Certainly, the temporary loss of the laboratory was to be taken into account, and so was the slim chance of losing the kidnapped subjects, but there was nothing he could not fix in due time, and truly irrelevant compared to the resounding success of such a monumental advancement in robotics. He whipped back his chair a bit, waiting for the first round between some of the New World’s finest. Poe felt the disturbance in the air, almost sniffing at it for a second before turning to Lenore, "Well this isn't a good thing." "Yes Poe, divorce is not a good thing, we've been over this," Lenore responded pointedly. "I wasn't talking about that, I was talking about the shockwave that's coming." "Shockwave?" "The one I'm about to cancel out in about twenty or so seconds. Won't reach you, which is why your kenbunshoku isn't reacting." "That would explain it... You sure you aren't just saying this to change the subject?" "Now would I ever be that tricky?" Poe grinned in response to Lenore's look of incredulity. The Tengu turned towards the direction of the disturbance as he drew his hands back. The wave was approaching the dock, approaching the island from behind them. Poe walked forward to the edge fo the pier as he observed the wave approaching. "Kaijo," He announced calmly as he brought his blackened hands forward, impacting the wave as it threatened to overtake him. Streaks of black mixed in with the air, as the wave began to falter and dissipate. A ring of black raced across it from his position, his haki destructively interfering with the wave, causing it to fall apart almost completely, an effect that would eventually stop the entire thing. Poe shook his hands for a second, "Hate that technique, always makes me feel itchy." he commented before pausing for a moment. "Mind staying on the ship? I feel like I need to check that out. I'll be back." He said before transforming into a crow and winging off. "You better..." was Lenore's only comment. Poe observed the devastation on the island while flying around it, his form looking like that of any other crow as he looked for the cause. Back in Black "DETECTED: COUNTER DISTURBANCE. POTENTIAL SOURCE: ADVANCED APPLICATION OF BOSUSHOKU". "As expected from the old Poe", Weil commented. "Always acting gallantly in front of his loved ones. I will leverage such advantage in due time, but there is so much testing to do before..." The waves of pain that had drowned Valerius' brain came to an abrupt end. Valerius stopped screaming, staring at the world around him in further confusion. Suddenly, a black wave of immense magnitude crossed before his eyes, passing through him. It made a tremendous shriek, a metallic sound of unholy proportions, but Valerius himself barely felt a thing. Whatever enemies he was being forced to fight, at least one of them was immensely proficient with the art of Haki, to conjure a wall of such proportions. How ironic: had Valerius been in a different shape, he would fell pure excitement at facing such a strong opponent, and immense stupor at coming unscathed. Now both of those occurrences filled his heart with a sense of dread. Other spears were burrowing inside his temples; countless colors splashed over Valerius' display, displayed alongside remarks pointing toward a black dot far away. Valerius' focus had flipped back to the crow form in the place of the adversary- a Zoan user too boot- and with that pain was lancing as stronger as ever. So overwhelming that his sight ended up blurring, consumed by black smears and eventually shutting numb. But Valerius wasn't returning to his sleeplike state, nor losing track on his prey; rather, his mind was attuning so much to the following hunt that every information about the target was skipping the rational parts of his mind. Years spent tempering the beast inside, washed away in an instant, replaced with a pure desire to reap apart, mutilate, destroy. Valerius took a sky-high leap with a single bound. In a lesser span that would take to a man's mind to perceive his change of position, he had come behind Poe's back, leaving an afterimage back on the devasted insular landscape. His claw shoot to rip Poe's body into tiny shreds, pushing away all the clouds in the horizon and tearing through the fabric of the sky like a drill from the heavens. "Oh, this is a big boy." Edgar cawed as he observed the metal beast staring at him from the ground below. The steel monster was a piece of work, he could tell that from here with little effort. The crow almost sighed for a second as it commented, "Well... Things like this are what I get paid for. A robot is a robot, even if it is a pain the the tail feathers." "Oh well, I guess it's time for this party to get started." The pirate added as he began to twist in mid air, his Haki warning him about what was to occur. Feathers parted for muscle as the crow grew dramatically from a small bird to a hybrid of man and crow. Standing at nearly ten foot tall, this was the Tengu of myth that gave Edgar his epithet. The claw of fire and steel met black feathers of flesh and blood as Poe slammed his elbow and knee into the side of the giant's limb, pinching the blow between them as he made his effort block the mighty blow. A crack resounded upon the impact, Edgar resisting the force of the beast's claw as it threatened to tear him asunder. But despite his heavy block, Edgar didn't have the leverage to resist the titanic swipe completely. A black blue streaked towards the ground, a feathered comet burning through the sky as the pirate impacted the earth on bent knees, crouching down as he bled off the force of the impact even as the ground shattered around him. But in the end stand he did as the Tengu stood tall and firm at the figure in the sky. Poe lowered his stance as he raised his fists, darkness flowing from his fists as his will spilled into the air around him. Two flows of a demon on the hands of the crow. Edgar popped an eager smile as his raised hand beckoned his opponent forward, even as his other was prepared to strike. "Come on you bag of bolts, surely you got better. I'm getting old down here!" Valerius had no wits left to understand Poe' taunts, but even if he some remained, he was too much in agony to care. The recoil of his attack had borrowed deeply inside his arm with a screeching sound, leaving it a mess burned with pain. Nothing about it was hurt, the black hide nor the sinew inside bore any crack whatsoever, yet his sensors were flaring up like raging wildfires, sending waves of pain to Valerius from every pore his body. The man began cradling and rolling around, weeping like a little kid. Whenever he turned around, the android felt a source of pain, even the wind blowing around him stabbed through his skin like a hail of swords. In his incredibly sensitive state, however, Poe's twin flows hammered the strongest on him, so much so that he could perceive their motions from the moment Poe had hurled his punches forward. For Valerius, there was no shield between himself and pain, no hiding to protect himself from the surrounding dangers. So, he had just to create one by himself. From the deepest recess of his tempestuous mind, a flicker of spirit drew forth the black ichor of Bosushoku Haki to act as as a coat for his tortured body. Black rippled upon black, creating a coat made of sludge over his hide. It blocked a measure of pain, giving Valerius some respite from the outside world. His breath became more measured, his movements more controlled, though madness was still burning through his fiery eyes. Valerius watched for Poe's attack in rage and defiance: he gave a metallic bellow and counterattacked by cocking a punch. His arm flickered from anybody's sight, hurling a blow of infused with Bosushoku so fast its effects were barely reflected on the surrounding, passing through the sky like a black lightning bolt. Only afterwards it gave birth to a massive sonic boom, an explosion which pushed the air with the speed and force of hundreds of rockets. Due to the sheer friction, the temperature around the attack burned everything on its warpath, shaping up a trail of scorched molecules. Flow against the flow, Haki against Haki, force against force, Valerius' spear met Poe's assault on the halfway road, intending to penetrate and overpower the latter's offence. Poe didn't even flinch as the effects of his two punches were swept aside, only grinning further as the wave of power threatened to consume the Tengu entirely. The flowing power encapsulating Edgar's hands flared as he poured more willpower into his clenched fist. Edgar stretched his fingers out as he rammed his outstretched hand directly into the centre of the blast. Flowing Haki dug into the explosion, the ground shattering beneath the old pirate as he struggled to resist the giant's blow. The world went white as the impacts collided with each other, a flash so bright it could be seen across the horizon, and as that flashed faded, only feathers remained, charred and burning pieces of bird that were the only evidence that Edgar had once stood there. After all, he had long since moved. Edgar had moved with the impact, slicing right through the blast wave by focusing his power into one thin point. By taking advantage of the flash, no human would be able to see the streak of black that shot out right from the centre of the explosion. A flash of black that ended right in front of the belly of the beast. Edgar sought to take advantage of throwing his attack right as the opponent finished following through with his, having jumped straight towards the giant metal beast with a single leap of his pillar-like legs. Having advanced far past the basic uses of Haki, the Tengu had learned to control the flow of Haki far more than most ever dreamed of. Advanced users of haki learned how to use the power of the dragon king, flowing their haki for more powerful strikes. Further beyond that, they learned to flow their haki into something, destroying it from the inside. However, both techniques suffered a fatal weakness. They were rather easy to stop with even minimal application of Haki, as it couldn't penetrate through it due to lacking the density that more traditional applications of Haki. So Edgar had gone one step farther. By compressing and accelerating the flow of Haki within his body, he had pushed that flow to the point where it was almost impossible to resist as the flow pushed not just into the opponent's body, but right through it. A talon of will to run the recipient right through. Black flowed off his fast as he brought it forward directly towards the center of Vanagandr's mass, a devastating right cloaked in deathly black. A shockwave flowed down his arm as he struck, his haki welling up into his fist as he poured his willpower into the tengu's fist. A heavenly fist to bring down a demonic monster. "KUROTSUME!" Blasted by the light, smitten with thunderclaps, consumed by pain, it should have been impossible for Valierus to comprehend Poe's swift maneuver and its blitzing counterattack. So fast and sharp was Poe's offense that even seasoned warriors with their wits wholly intact would have barely registered it amidst the ensuing chaos. Even so, Weil had done his job splendidly in equipping his experiment: the sensors that had granted the gladiator such a preternatural clear view of the world were parsing the Tengu's movement with perfect clarity. Be it throughout the burning bright of heaven or the murky maelstroms of hell, his eyes would keep signaling at Poe's unblinking, showing Valerius the picture of a crow-man surrounded by a shroud of mottled glow. A vortex of color that, however, receded almost immediately, washed away by a massive wave of black. Blackness coming from masterfully woven Bosushoku Haki, throbbing with immense malice. Blackness that Valerius perceived it could penetrate through his daunting armor, hurting him even more. The burning spear Kurotsumi embedded inside Valerius's primal mind before it was halfway close to striking down his metallic flesh. Thus, right when Poe's talon was about to collide, he darted backward, squatting on four like a scared animal on the run from their hunter. Discharging all of its strength in an exceedingly narrow range, Poe ended up throwing a hollow blow, with only the faintest echoes of his fist's tremendous power reaching Valerius' hide. Feeble black ripples, crashing down with no effect against the robot prodigious defenses. A shadow of relief passed on Valerius' face: gone was the spear of black from his mind, and the foretold agony was no more. A moment of vulnerability, expressed for barely a second before homicidal rage started to cloud his mind more savagely than ever. "Splendid, splendid!" Weil clapped his hand from his comfortable seat. For now, the gladiator was reacting wonderfully, even exceeding the scientist's expectation. Having one's flesh rendered away, and their senses magnified hundredfolds would have been a mind-shattering experience, too much for anybody to endure. Most men would have collapsed, crawling their unresponsive body in a sobbing, shrieking mess. Not Valerius. Though brought to the point of near-insanity, he had drawn forth his Haki to shield himself from pain, protecting him at the same from Poe's relentless assault. And even though the Former Hunting Pirates had moved so swiftly masters would have caught unaware, Valerius had reacted with perfect speed despite the overwhelming agony. No amount of training alone would have amounted in those circumstances, not when the mechanization process was still that fresh. To fight so well, Valerius had to be a natural-born killer. That was his fame among the sands of Midium Coliseum, perpetually stained with blood. A savage boy, a beast boy, having learned the life of civilized people only thanks to the great efforts of his father and his fellow gladiators. Years and years of training, not to hone Valerius' natural talents, but to tame his edges, making a domesticated mutt out of a wild wolf. Useless fetters, paraments which tempered what nature had already made so pure and perfect. By turning Valerius into an android, Weil had merely restored the monster-child to his former glory, though with tools and capabilities beyond the measly scope of human flesh. "So much more I have to show you, Poe-''dear''." Dr Weil's mood was positively giddy. "I can't wait for the excitement..." Once more, Valerius roared back at his opponent, and once more, the surrounding air trembled, shrieking with the impetus of a hurricane, a quintessential brown note that would shatter both mortal minds and the frail skulls surrounding them. From his hunched position, he soared forward, obscuring the black Tegu inside its deep shadow. The two black beasts looked like one single mass, banded together in the same darkness. A pair of long, yet skeletal wing sprouting from Valerius' back complemented the kinship between the two black creatures, even though his own were longer, emaciated, without a feather or a thread of skin to cover them up. Bare wings of a bat, surely alike those of the most terrifying fiends of hell. Crimson tides began to amass inside the monster's maw, left gaping, almost gluttonous for Poe's flesh and bones. Electrical particles whizzed and crackled, flashes of the deepest red were spewing right above Poe's head. It looked like the power of countless microscopic stars was being harnessed, concentrated, and fashioned in a coherent wave of destruction, one whose heat found expression in the flurry of sparks smouldering between Valerius' teeth. Then the cataract suddenly burst forth, dropping not a waterfall of fire, but blasting Poe's with a precise, utterly devastating death laser. "Shit... this tin can is dangerous," Poe noted as he poured far more power into his fists, the black clouds obscuring his claws billowing out around his entire body. Whatever this creature was, it was fast enough to back out of the effective range of Kurotsume with Kenbunshoku sensing it alone. Category:Tabor gorilla